On Properties of SAT Instances Produced by SAT-Based ATPGs
Jan Schmidt2009
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Abstract
In this paper we propose a study of properties of SAT (satisfiability) instances produced by SAT-based Automatic Test Pattern Generators (ATPGs). Standard non-commercial SAT solvers are being widely used for the purpose of solving these instances. We show an analysis of properties of these special SAT instances. Even though these ATPG SAT instances have been thoroughly studied in the past, we show some newly found properties. Particularly, reasons why ATPG SAT instances are ‘easy to be solved’ are shown by analysis of the SAT instances. Then, unexpected behavior of ATPG SAT instances, in terms of their satisfiability, was observed. Next, we propose solution-preserving SAT transformations and study the properties of the reduced SAT instances.
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